The Great Grand Robin Jarvis Reread

Tag: whitby witches

‘I am Empress of the Dark,’ she exulted. ‘Armies shall fall before me and nations tremble at the mention of my name.’

Aufwader’s Thoughts: Matt mentioned during the ‘Up Next’ post for this book that when it first came out there was no indication that it was part of a trilogy. This is really interesting, because the ending does read like an honest-to-goodness series finale. Like the ending of The Final Reckoning, it is positively apocalyptic in its proportions, and when all is said and done, it feels like our heroes have really faced the worst that Rowena and the Lords of the Deep could throw at them.

This final chapter was as vivid on cassette as it is in book form, if a little pared down. It’s certainly one of my favourite of Mr Jarvis’ finales, and, along with Deathscent and the entire Wyrd Museum Trilogy, showcases his love for history in a way that is amazingly cinematic and exuberant. The finale sequence, with Mrs Cooper cackling and Whitby flashing through the ages and our heroes in deadly peril, makes a fantastic case for a Whitby Witches television miniseries. I’ve often thought of this book being most fitted to TV adaptation with 1990s techniques, but since that can never be, I’ll take today’s digital effects if it means bringing the awesome power of Hilda’s staff to life.

As with any Robin Jarvis finale there’s going to be a lot of myth and a lot of sacrifice, and the ending of The Whitby Witches surpasses expectations on both fronts. Poor Sister Bridget, and poor Hesper! I cried when she was snatched cruelly from us, but I understand that her demise was inevitable. After all, she was simply too nice to live.

Then there’s the fact that everyone’s efforts to find the moonkelp amounted to nothing, and the aufwader’s are, as Miss Boston says, ‘doomed to extinction.’ If this were the ending to a stand-alone novel, it would be a poignant and unsettling one, but we all know that these are only the shallows. Darker things await us further out, Readers all, and we will need all our fortitude (and a bit of aufwader magic) to survive those grim and fearful depths.

Matt’s Thoughts: I am a bit of a fan of ‘classic’ films. (I think I’ve bought Lawrence of Arabia about four times since I was a teenager because, you know, first there was a VHS version, then a 30th anniversary VHS version, then a DVD, then a Blu-Ray.)

But, I also love the other type of classics: the big-screen crowd-pleasers where all the elements are set up and then come together in an exhilarating finale. That’s exactly the feel I get from the ending of The Whitby Witches.

What’s not to love? Every little historical story that Mr Jarvis has dropped to our characters throughout the book all come back and everything pays off. Even if you saw the ending coming about the crumbling tower with the dead hound in it, it just makes it more thrilling when that particular gag rolls around. (Can I call it a gag? I like to think there’s a certain humour to it.)

However, it’s not completely fun and games. Losing Hesper on the way is a low blow and the bleak hanging ending of the aufwaders still being doomed … It makes the ending of this book both satisfying and miserable at the same time. In short, exactly what we want from Robin Jarvis and a cracking introduction to a whole new fictional world.

So I shall look forward to getting back into that in two months … But see you in a few days for The Alchymist’s Cat!

With a rumble that shook all the oceans of the world, the nightmarish spectacle roared towards them.

Aufwader’s Thoughts: So it was Rowena who invented Whitby Goth Weekend! I knew it!

This chapter sees a few answers dredged from the depths. As we all no doubt suspected, it was Mrs Cooper who was behind the grisly murders of the Ladies’ Circle, and with the help of her dark powers, no less. What’s great about this reveal is that we saw it coming, and yet it doesn’t feel like a let-down at all. Mrs Cooper is not just a murderess, she has other, grander plans up her billowing black sleeve, and they are beyond our wildest nightmares.

Then we have the down and dirty business with Silas Gull. Unlike the Mrs Cooper Mystery I actually didn’t see that one coming the first time around, and while it was a shock, it was also slightly comforting to know that Nelda’s father was not, in fact, a double-crossing backstabber who murders people’s relatives on the sly and threatens small children with knives.

While Silas does not quite inspire the vitriol of Esau, to call him unpleasant would be a grave understatement. He is a ghastly specimen, worthy of any Deptford rat, and his vileness only becomes more pronounced as we witness him taunt Sister Bridget and assault Nelda. When the Lords of the Deep and Dark finally turn up to claim the half-child, our sorrow at her passing is mingled with relief that Silas is no more.

What about the Lords of the Deep and Dark? They are a revelation, and the ghost of Lovecraft arises with them. Too vast for human (or aufwader) minds to perceive, manifesting before our heroes as terrible tentacled abominations of the deep, one gets the urge to cry ‘Cthulhu fhtagn’ and abase oneself in despair. If it wasn’t H.P.L. who inspired these cataclysmic nightmares, I’d love to know what, if anything, Mr Jarvis was drawing on to bring them to awe-inspiring life.

Matt’s Thoughts: So here we are. Whether you took a bit longer to warm up to the world of Whitby after the blood and thunder of the Deptford Mice, or whether you took to it straight away, it doesn’t matter.

We are on the Jarvis home stretch. We know these passages instantly now. The natural elements will be in full force. (Storms! Waves! Thunder! Lightning!) Supernatural light crackles and fizzes. Eerie things glow. Villains gloat. The stakes are high.

And then we get the Oh no! Moment when Ben utters the wrong incantation. I think I mentioned in The Final Reckoning read-through that there is a moment where all the options get cut off and you can’t see where it’s going. That sort of happened in Book 3 of the Mice, but here we are, second last chapter of the first Whitby book and we have no idea how this is going to be sorted out. It looks like absolutely everything is ruined.

‘Very well, child. If thou do indeed bring back the treasure of the Deep Ones, I shall lift my judgement. But if thee return empty-handed, then expect the full measure of my wrath and abide by my decision.’

Aufwader’s Thoughts: What a grim and gripping chapter this is! It’s only the first book in the trilogy and already we have the beginnings of a killer finale (no pun intended). Ben has found the moonkelp just in time, and the sprint to reach it and save the fisherfolk o’ Whitby bay from extinction is underway. As if that were not enough, we are also deluged with enough aufwader lore to keep me busy for weeks, so let’s have a look at some of that.

A few posts ago, I speculated as to whether the aufwader’s gift of foresight was ubiquitous. While that has not yet been answered, we do get to see another power which is definitely shared by all the tribe; the ‘aufwader snare’. This is worded in such a way that it might be a metaphor, but to me it reads as if Nelda and her family are literally rooted to the floor by the collective gaze of their fellow angry fisherfolk.

This raises some very interesting questions. Ben was caught in the snare when he first came upon Nelda, and later Silas Gull used it on him again with malevolent intent. However, the snare must have had other uses before the mother’s curse took hold and the tribe began to die out. I wonder, does this hypnotic power bear any relation to the luring song of sirens and other mystical beings of the deeps, if they exist in this universe?

In this chapter we also have the honour of venturing into the ancient home of the tribe. I shed a tear with Hesper when I think of the ammonite caverns where marvellous festivities were once held, now blocked up by a dwindling community who have run out of causes for merriment. A few old wonders still survive, however, like the hidden entrance to the caves, operated by a simple but sturdy mechanism and invisible to prying outsider eyes. One is reminded of the bespelled doorways devised by Tolkien’s dwarves to protect their mountain halls, though in this case, there is more engineering than magic involved.

Finally, I must begrudgingly mention Esau, as we make his acquaintance in this chapter. Those of you who are reading this book for the first time will forgive the rest of us for pausing to spit at the mention of his name. Believe us, you’ll be spitting too before the trilogy is over.

Matt’s Thoughts: For the first time we get to have a look around the aufwader digs, with caves, secret doors and all sorts of awesome stuff. (That’s my less poetic description of the place.) I do have to ask, though, for those of you who are actually British: are there really that many caves in the UK? Growing up on Enid Blyton books, I just assumed that wherever you went in England, you were within half an hour’s walk of a cave or a railway tunnel. So of course there are secret caves all over Whitby. But are there that many famous caves? Do any of you go exploring caves for fun

Anyway, moving on from caves … Robin Jarvis is usually fairly respectful of his community leaders – they might be a bit stuffy (like Mr Oldnose), but on the whole people like the Thane and Mr Woodruffe are a good sort. So it’s a little bit out of character (but totally awesome) to have Esau come out, deliver a resounding banishment and then get fairly solidly told off by Nelda. (Cop that, Long Whiskers!)

And just when we start to get all excited about moonkelp … Rowena! It’s that moment when the arch-villain shows up and it’s every bit as iconic and brilliant as we want it to be.

But before I breathlessly flick over to Chapter 13, I do have a question for Aufwader: Tarr’s accent? Does that sound a little bit like he’s migrated down from your part of the world?

The hair which she shook loose was a thick tangle of green that grew far back on the top of her head. She swept the heavy, seaweed-like hanks over her shoulders, and, as she did so, Jennet saw the scales beneath her scalloped ears glisten in the moonlight.

Aufwader’s Thoughts: I am not the first reader of the Whitby Witches Trilogy – and I daresay I will not be the last – to notice the echoes of that most notorious of cosmic horror writers, H.P. Lovecraft, in these books. We’ll sink further into that particular murky rock pool when we get to The Whitby Child, but for now, let’s take a gander at this chapter and unpick a few soggy nets.

When I asked Mr Jarvis about the relationship between this trilogy and the works of ol’ H.P.L., he told me that he had never read any Lovecraft. This makes a deeply uncanny co-incidence of the rather startling similarities between the Whitby Witches and Lovecraft’s mythos, because frankly, these books gurgle ‘Lovecraft’ from every page. (That said, there were other writers who were doing what Lovecraft was doing to a certain extent long before that lantern-jawed shut-in arrived on the scene, so I can only assume that Mr Jarvis read the likes of them instead.)

So, how does this chapter, specifically, relate to Lovecraft and writers of his ilk? The half-child, dear Readers. Perhaps one of H.P.L.’s most famous novellas, The Shadow Over Innsmouth (remember that title, we’ll need it later) revolves around the inhabitants of the eponymous fishing village, who, we discover, have interbred with the ghoulish, amphibious Deep Ones to create a town populated by malevolent, gill-sporting, fish-eyed horrors.

The implications of The Shadow Over Innsmouth are deeply racist, but thankfully the Whitby Witches Trilogy demonstrates none of those unpleasant insinuations. Instead, it illuminates the other, more savoury motivation for the story. To wit: Creatures From The Deep Sea Are Positively Supernatural In Their Grotesquerie And Boy Oh Boy Aren’t They Fun To Write About.

In our version, the half-child is the product of a human-aufwader union, and her existential crisis comes from within. She is not remotely malevolent, but rather a sad, lost soul who will never be quite at home on land nor sea. Although her appearance is initially alarming, Miss Boston is quick to tell her that she ‘looks marvellous’, and Aunt Alice’s enthusiasm helps to dispel any lingering fear of Sister Bridget that Jennet, or indeed us readers, might have had.

I feel like I’m going to be saying ‘then there’s the Lords of the Deep and Dark’ quite often during the reread of this trilogy, so please bear with me on that front. If anything in the Whitby Witches is an echo of Lovecraft, the Triad most certainly are. Malevolent and tyrannical, dwelling out beyond the waves (or out beyond the stars?) cruel, callous, vast and uncaring, they reign in the long and not-especially-proud tradition of Dread Cthulhu, monarch of the undersea realm of R’lyeh and Lovecraft’s most infamous eldritch god. Cthulhu, it is said, will sleep and dream until the end of days, when He will arise from the depths to usher in a new era of suffering and despair for the world. What we must now ask is whether the Lords of the Deep and Dark have a similar advent in mind.

Matt’s Thoughts: Ah, what a sad bit of seafaring mythology we have here as we find out the sad back story of Sister Bridget. I just love the whole way this unfolds. I can’t explain it, but there’s something simultaneously sad about it but also wondrous at the same time. Where the normal world and the fantasy world start to collide.

It’s also great to see Jennet not being neglected – despite being one of the few characters in the story who hasn’t at least had a crack at practicing magic!

I’m starting to feel like this whole book is a long-lost BBC miniseries that got made somewhere in the 90s, was out on VHS for a little while and then disappeared into obscurity, but long-remembered by those who sat glued to the telly back in the day.

I’m possibly also contrasting it with The Witching Legacy, which is quite a different kettle of fish, despite being in the same setting. The latest one whips through at a super-fast pace with terrors at every corner, this has a slightly slower but very elegant speed, which means that the big moments are truly big. They’re both awesome, but I have felt a bit like I’m caught in two periods of history in the same place.

Meanwhile, just what is Rowena looking for at the Banbury-Scott house? (To be honest, I can’t quite remember, so I’m just going to have to rush on to the next chapter!)

It was too terrible to contemplate. Anything that fell from that dizzy height would be smashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below. Tilly felt ill and the strength left her legs. Her sobs choked her as she plucked up enough courage to peer over the edge, preparing herself for this distant sight of a small, furry body floating on the water.

Aufwader’s Thoughts: I didn’t notice this until now, but the scene in which Miss Boston meets the Mother Superior in her office is the first mention of a Bakelite radio we get in Robin Jarvis canon. Like coiling ammonites, those slightly sinister-looking relics of the early 20th Century have become one of his trademark narrative props. I can’t recall if a Bakelite appears in the Wyrd Museum Trilogy, but I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy spotting them here and there as we venture further into this project.

This chapter could more-or-less be summed up as ‘Miss Boston investigates’, but it seems the Mrs Cooper Mystery has more layers than she could have imagined. The scenes at the convent have the same unearthly feel as when Jennet interrupted Sister Bridget on the cliff, and the fact that nothing is ever explained fully only makes it more unsettling. The ‘novice’ has been living in the convent since 1738, but what sort of a being is she, who glows faintly green and lives an unnaturally prolonged span of years? Moreover, what could Mrs Cooper, suspected murderess and doer of sundry foul deeds, want with her?

As illustrated in the Deptford Mice Trilogy, no small detail or passing reference is ever just a small detail or passing reference. Here Eurydice the cat illustrates this perfectly when she presents her owner with the Hand of Glory, thus revealing Mrs Cooper’s perfidy to another member of the Ladies’ Circle. Poor Tilly Droon, whose only crime was to be a slightly-wiffy cat lady!

Matt’s Thoughts: ‘Miss Boston investigates’ is a perfect title for the goings-on here. I love the image of her harassing the town doctor, harassing the local police, accusing people of murder. It’s just like Heartbeat but with, you know, ghosts, witches and small invisible creatures that look for moonkelp.

What also fascinates me is the conversation between Aunt Alice and the Mother Superior. First off, short of watching The Sound of Music, when was the last time a Mother Superior showed up in a story, anyway? In many ways, this first Whitby book gives you the sense that, really, it could be set in the 1930s and you wouldn’t notice much difference to it. (Unlike The Witching Legacy series which is very much conscious of its time and place and features all manner of modern-day references. Dancing Jax even more so.) So it has a certain Agatha Christie feel to it that I like.

But more than that, I’m fascinated by how the two women view each other. Witchcraft would, of course, be openly condemned by the Catholic Church. So Stereotypical Version 1 of this scene would have had Miss Boston running into a hostile and unhelpful Mother Superior. Stereotypical Version 2 would have been slightly softer and feature an oblivious Mother Superior and a sly Miss Boston pretending to be innocent.

However, the way it’s written is far more fascinating, because you can’t help but get the feeling that both women know exactly what each other is like and what they get up to. But both of them are also aware, though probably in different ways, that the town needs help and that Sister Bridget is important to everything. I don’t think the Mother Superior ever shows up again, but she just fleshes out the interesting group of side-characters that feature in this book.

Finally, what a chapter finale! There’s not much I can add, because it’s so well written. But the final image is utterly freaky. It’s like something out of a disturbing 70s film. I could just imagine it freaking people out at a movie theatre. Brilliant stuff.

But utterly disturbing as well. Who’s going to be left for the second Whitby book at the rate Robin is churning through them in Book 1?

Miss Boston squinted at the hazy blur, which seemed to be some sort of scar. She sucked her teeth and nodded to herself; that was no ordinary mark and she knew that nobody else present would be able to see it.

Aufwader’s Thoughts: I must say it was a relief to see Miss Boston accept Ben and Jennet’s stories as fact. In a previous post I mentioned that she showed signs of being acquainted with the supernatural and that that might just been what the children need, and now that quality comes into its own. So often in fantasy the hero’s parents or guardians are well-meaning but oblivious to their charge’s magical adventures, and while that may work in other stories, our Ben and Jennet desperately need an adult who will not only listen and understand what they are going through, but do their best to help as well.

The little interlude at the lifeboat museum is one that made quite an impression on me when I first read it, and which I could still clearly recall even when I couldn’t remember exactly when in the book it happens. It stood out to me as being one of those scenes where you can tell that Mr Jarvis really loves history, and that he really, really loves Whitby history. Like Robin’s books as a whole, the story the stranger tells Ben about the exhibit is one third educational and two thirds grotesque, and I’d even go out on a limb here and hazard that the unnamed man was Mr Jarvis himself, making a cameo.

Finally, the Mrs Cooper Mystery continues with her appearance at Mrs Joyster’s funeral. I love the illustration for this chapter; Mrs Cooper prim and proper in her elegant mourning dress, and Miss Boston in full detective mode, peering suspiciously up at her, wondering at the silvery marks which mar that perfectly made-up cheek…

Matt’s Thoughts: I love the idea of Robin Jarvis being the man in the museum. It would make perfect sense. He sees a child. Works out a story that is gripping but tragic. Chuckles to himself as he walks away from the trauma he has caused. Genius theory, Aufwader.

I’m not even going to pretend we don’t know what those silver marks are. You can’t do much more foreshadowing than that. Robin might not have given us a vampire in this story, but we’ve got ourselves a werewolf! (Or were-hound? Or … I don’t know … help me out, fantasy people? Is there a technical term for people that change into animals that all the kids use today?)

Now, speaking of Rowena, I have just been watching old episodes of Poirot with my wife and discovered that in a 1993 episode of the show, there is an actress by the name of Rowena Cooper. This has made me curious – is she someone Robin bumped into back in his model-making TV days, and immortalised in The Whitby Witches? Or given that we know from an earlier chapter that Rowena’s real name is Roslyn Crozier, did Roslyn pinch her fake name from an obscure TV actress and hope nobody would notice?

He was an ugly character. A great sneer scarred his face and his large ears were ragged and torn from many fights. His side-whiskers were black and wiry, framing his leering head like the legs of a huge poisonous spider, and his large dark eyes slid slyly from side to side in the shadow of scowling brows.

Aufwader’s Thoughts: Callooh callay, more aufwader lore! This trilogy has a depth and richness that astounds me every time I read it; there is always something new to discover. Were I suddenly and unceremoniously flung into the worlds of Robin Jarvis, my profession of choice would most certainly be Linguist and Lore-keeper. I’d travel the lands great and small, collecting and cataloguing everything from the prophecies of the bats to the ancient incantations of Jupiter, and I’d make a point of recording the wealth of wonders that aufwader oral tradition contains.

The aufwader’s legends are an excellent example of world-building; the passing mentions of Shorebrides and Weathercharmers intrigue us and tell us more about the collective experience of the fisherfolk, but they also raise the stakes for the overall story.

By learning more about them, we can more clearly see just how imperilled the aufwaders are by the decree of their wrathful gods, and our sympathy for their plight deepens. How much wisdom, how many great sagas and precious memorials, were lost to the mother’s curse long before Tarr and Hesper’s time? As the tribe dwindles, the stories and legends that make them who they are also disappear, and without a new generation to keep its shared mythology and culture alive, the community cannot hope to survive. It’s a dreadful way to go, and we as readers rail against it even as Nelda, Hesper, and Ben do in their desperate search for the moonkelp.

The world-building continues imperceptibly (that is to say, beautifully) with Ben’s encounter with a mysterious and rather alarming specimen. In the hands of another author the aufwaders would be just one more race of cantankerous but essentially good-hearted fantasy creatures, but this mean, murderous, double-crossing individual demonstrates in no uncertain terms that not all of the fisherfolk are congenial. Beware, children with ‘the sight’! Some faery friends will greet you with a smile, some with a knife at your throat!

Matt’s Thoughts: As Aufwader is having a grand time with all the deep layers of Whitby mythology, I thought I’d change tack and say that I’m actually really enjoying the mundane characters of the town. They just get thrown in, make a brief appearance, but they all give a flavour to the town of Whitby.

For instance, the bratty kid in the cemetery a few chapters ago, running around, kicking gravestones. He doesn’t really add much to the story, but it just reminds you that Whitby is simultaneously an old town with secrets and a tourist trap. (Actually, that could describe all the UK, really.)

I loved Constable Mayhew last chapter who thinks of Miss Boston as an ‘old dragon’ but knows if he doesn’t answer her questions, she’ll pester him until she does. Is there some back story when she remembers him as a little boy and so he’s never grown out of owing her respect?

And then we’ve got the awesomely-named Kenneth Grice, passing on the increasingly sinister news about Mrs Banbury-Scott. Things aren’t looking too great in that section.

Speaking of not too great, how terrifying is Jennet’s run-in with the hound? And what we do have to do to get an enchanted fork like that one?